AirPi Kit v1.4 - Raspberry Pi weather station shield

"Senses 99.9% of all known stuff" - Clive, Raspberry Pi foundation

The AirPi is a shield for the Raspberry Pi which can automatically provide information to the Raspberry Pi about temperature, humidity, air pressure, nitrogen dioxide levels, carbon monoxide levels, the current light levels and noise levels. Our open-source code then takes this information and automatically uploads it to a online database.

The AirPi is sold as a kit, which means that in order to assemble it you will need basic soldering skills. All the parts are through hole, so is is easy for beginners to solder - we've had many people learn to solder using the AirPi kits! We also include full instructions on how to assemble the kit and setup the Raspberry Pi to work with it.

The full contents of the kit are:

AirPi PCB, with the CO and NO2 sensors pre-soldered onto it

DHT22 temperature & humidity sensor

BMP085 air pressure sensor

Light sensor (LDR)

A microphone, to measure noise pollution

A rail-to-rail op-amp to amplify the signal from the microphone (MCP6283)

Analogue to digital converter (MCP3008)

One red & one green LED

A header for exposing the extra ADC inputs, for connecting your own sensors

A stacking header for the Raspberry Pi, so you can use this with another shield for the Pi.

All the resistors and capacitors for the parts above

Please note this kit does not include a Raspberry Pi.

Potential uses

Monitoring the indoor environment

Several people have used our kit to monitor the indoor environment of their house, for example, to know whether their dehumidifier was working, or whether their spouse had left the lights turned on.

Recording data about the air quality

The sensors which the AirPi records, whilst poor indicators of absolute NO2 or CO levels, provide quite good relative readings, enabling you to determine for certain whether or not that huge new factory across the road actually made the air worse!

Anything at all!

The code on the Raspberry Pi is fully open source (on GitHub), which means you can use the AirPi shield to do anything! You can add new sensors (we expose 3 of the extra ADC connections on the board, one person has connected up a geiger counter to his in order to measure radiation), or you can just use the sensors we already have to trigger things (for example, turning on the heating when the lights are turned on).

22 reviews

PCB schematics 1.4 and interpretating MICS-4514 gaz sensors

Dec. 3, 2014

The product is great and has been been working right away.However the PCB schematics for version 1.4 is missing from the current documentationAdditionnally the current gaz sensors interpretation web page (http://airpi.es/sensors.php) is applicable to version prior to v1.4.It would be really good have the update for both the schematics and interpretation page.

nice add-on piece for the raspberry pi

Nov. 6, 2014

The assembly of the board was easy - after less than 1h it was operational. The software from AirPi website works, but is outdated, the circuit diagram cannot be downloaded any more. The project seemed/is abandoned. The mic stopped working or works only occasionally - I didn't find any hardware error. Luckily I found a newer piece of software at https://github.com/haydnw/AirPi, which works fine including the mic...overall a nice add-on piece for the raspberry pi...

Great Product, but still a couple of kinks

July 22, 2014

The product arrived in great condition, well packaged. In following the documentation, that is where it got a little tricky and it wasn't as straight forward as following the exact instructions. I went through the instructions on the Airpi site, but that left me with an error message when I tried running it (error saying one of the sensors should be checked). This seemed super odd, so I went to the Github repo and walked back through the steps.

The steps on the Github repo are different than the Airpi site. After going through those, I powered up my Pi, and bam worked brilliantly! So my tip - look on Github for the AirPi repo and documentation there. However still a great project that is very easy - just follow the Github docs.

It took a while but came

July 15, 2014

I bought five kits and received them properly: well packed and in individual cases.The request took thirty days to be posted and, while waiting for the arrival, I had some difficulty communicating with the seller, who did not inform the tracking number on request and not responded to my subsequent contacts.

AirPi is a great and simple wather station kit!

June 6, 2014

The AirPi Kit v1.4 is a simple but high quality add-on for the Raspberry Pi to realize a small weather station within some hours. Soldering the circuit was very simple - no need to ready manuals before :) The small introduction-sheet lists all parts with a small image.

To make sure no short circuit happens when hooking AirPi to the Raspberry Pi, i would suggest to put some tape on top of the ethernet and usb sockets.

Installing the drivers and tools could be more tricky, but best is to simply stick to Tom's checklist (at https://github.com/tomhartley/AirPi) After playing around with Xively I finnaly got the channels to work as well. Make sure the channel-names match the Parameters sent using airpi.py!

Data feed of my AirPi at xively: https://xively.com/feeds/115042809

The only thing I'm missing, is the possibility to add an UV sensor to the board. Maybe it could be hooked to the board in future.

Good start for what it is.

Dec. 18, 2013

I have received and built my AirPi kit. Please note that this is not a negative review but an assessment for those looking for a complete and polished product. First all, read about what this is and who and why it was designed by. That said, it is a great product as a learning tool on several levels. This is not without issues though. First, since the project is student driven, I suspect that is why there are sometimes massive delays in updates to everything. There are a few of us in the forum who are trying to answer questions to the best of our ability but we are not affiliated with the project. Take the time to read through the forum and understand what you are buying. All that said, buy one and help make it better!

Response from the Seller

Dec. 19, 2013

I appreciate your honest assessment, thank you. I'll be spending a lot of time trawling the forums and pushing updates for requested features over the Christmas holidays :) I just finished the instructions and version 2 of the code which should sort out the majority of major issues - http://airpi.es/kit.php

Great project, very easy to assemble

Dec. 17, 2013

Out of the box (literally.. it comes in a box), this seems like a fairly complex project - but it really isn't. The PCB design is absolutely brilliant because it says exactly what should go where right on the board. It does come with minimal instructions, but if you can follow the board, you are in great shape. The one tricky part is getting the headers soldered in to connect to your Raspberry Pi. You'll want to play with it a little to get it at the right height so it is flush with the R-Pi. Now if only I hadn't given away my monitor... Will get to installing the code once I get that part figured out :) But overall really great. Congrats AirPi team on a great first product!

up and running

Dec. 16, 2013

Kit arrived and components soldered with no issues. There has been no mention of the missing TGS2600 which was a vital component for me. Not sure if it will not work if I buy one myself and install it. Was it dropped for bad performance or cost?The xively link took a little while to figure out. The codes had to be inserted in AirPi.cfg under [Cosm} and for those of us without the history that this was used prior to xively and the code was not changed the one last thing that was not described anywhere I could see was that enabled=True needed to be set. The other thing that is not well documented is the LCD setting to False, since nowhere can I see any reference to there being an LCD attachment and I was thinking in terms of this having to do with whether there was going to be a monitor connected to the RPi. A note on the forum sorted that out so finally the data is on show. Of course since neither the UV or Air Quality are now included a load of nonsense values are displayed so they need to be set to disable in the AirPi.cfg as well.If I can get AirQuality working then I will try to deploy a number of them throughout the country. If not then it will remain a fun project but much less useful.There are no instructions as to how to monitor the microphone (that replaced the UVI) and whether this information can be uploaded to xively. It seems a new software release is needed

Response from the Seller

Dec. 19, 2013

Hi - sorry for the delay in publishing the final instructions. I've finalised version 2 of the code (which supports the microphone, contains sensible defaults (so hardly anything needs to be changed), and should sort out the weird channels on Xively), and put some detailed & installation instructions online now: http://airpi.es/kit.php

AirPi build instructions

Dec. 15, 2013

I received the AirPi about two weeks ago. It can with very limited instructions for building. I am new to this type of project and would appreciate detailed build instructions. The kit can with directions to a web site that was supposed to have this. It it just says the instructions will be posted Thursday evening. The AirPi website does not refer to this page and does not have detailed build instructions.

Response from the Seller

Dec. 19, 2013

Hello, I'm very sorry for the delay in publishing the final instructions. I've finalised version 2 of the code, and put some detailed assembly & installation instructions online now: http://airpi.es/kit.php

Lovely kit but still waiting for the full instructions

Dec. 15, 2013

The kit is admirably neat and the circuit board especially so but although I am a fairly competent solderer I always like instructions in case there is a gotcha somewhere in the sequence. I quite understand that Tom is probably tied up with studies but perhaps he could request someone who has already assembled the kit to send him a write-up that could be put on the airpi.es site? It still says the full instructions will be up Thursday!

Response from the Seller

Dec. 19, 2013

Hi - sorry for the delay in publishing the final instructions. I've finalised version 2 of the code (which supports the microphone, contains sensible defaults (so hardly anything needs to be changed), and should sort out the weird channels on Xively), and put some detailed assembly & installation instructions online now: http://airpi.es/kit.php

AirPi Kit - Raspberry Pi weather station shield

Dec. 15, 2013

I received my shield a few weeks ago, the assemble itself was easy and self-explanatory.It seems to be working, but the questions to the seller will not be answered.One question was for one of the sensor, the TGS2600 is it included or not, wasn't answered, is not included I found out.One question was for the connection to Xively, I have problems to saw my data on Xively, I have no idea to manage this.I think,I will write a Web application on the Raspi itself to have the Data....Produc exelent, but service is bad.Rgds Michael

Beware the lack of support

Dec. 15, 2013

I was looking forward to my AirPi, but so far it hasn't quite lived up to my expectations. The team behind the AirPi is busy with other things and don't provide much feedback in their forum. There have been several changes to the original AirPi, but not to the software, and a lot of trial-and-error with both hard- and software is required. If I wouldn't be a tinkerer and programmer, I'd probably ask for my money back.

Response from the Seller

Dec. 19, 2013

I'm extremely sorry for the lack of support on my part - I've finally managed to polish up the latest version of the software, which is much more extensible. You can view the instructions for assembling & installing it here: http://airpi.es/kit.php

Nice kit, all in one

Dec. 15, 2013

The V2 is nice and everything fits perfectly.One comment is about the time to get the kit and the code which isn't updated yet (the code available need an update to fit the v2 board).Finally, if you want to build a air quality monitor station, AirPi's a nice solution.

Great kit but no news.

Dec. 15, 2013

The kit I received is very very nice. PCB, composants, packaging, all are TOP ! But in terms of software and support, no news from AirPi team since the PCB dispatch... The soft is still the old version which does not match anymore the new PCB version (no more UV sensor but a microphone instead) and which cause I think some captors to report 0 value..It was a great idea, great kit, please wakeup and keep it great !

Response from the Seller

Dec. 19, 2013

Hi - sorry for the delay in publishing the final instructions. I've finalised version 2 of the code (which supports the microphone, contains sensible defaults (so hardly anything needs to be changed), and should sort out the weird channels on Xively), and put some detailed & installation instructions online now: http://airpi.es/kit.php

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